There’s something rather Indian about this bread. The butter is browned, in a process similar to making ghee/ clarified butter, though we stop well before it reaches the ghee stage. Mixing in mashed bananas with ghee and sugar adds to that feeling of making panchamirtham. The taste however, though very flavourful, is not at all similar to the jam like Indian temple offering made famous by the Palani Murugan Temple in Tamilnadu.
Making Cranberry Banana Bread
I have adapted the recipe from Joy the Baker with some changes in ingredient quantities as these worked better for me.
The cranberries have been reduced in my recipe to 1 cup and dry cranberries used instead of fresh. Frozen cranberries would suit too.
You need very ripe or even over ripe (but not rotten) bananas for this recipe. They need to be mashed nicely, without lumps, to give the bread the required texture.
The original recipe includes a layer of crumble to cover the bread. I’ve left it out as I like the bread better without it. And in these times when ingredients are not as plentifully available as they used to be, I save on some flour and butter too. The bread is so flavourful I didn’t miss the crumble.
While making the batter, after separately mixing the dry ingredients and whisking in the wet ones, make sure you don’t stir the combined batter or whisk it. Just gently fold in the wet into the dry ingredients so that all the flour becomes wet, and lightly fold in the cranberries.
Other easy Bake Recipes From This Blog:
Pizza Margherita with Tomato, Mozzarella, Basil
Easy Cranberry Banana Bread From Ripe Bananas
Ingredients
For the Bread:
- ¾ cup unsalted butter - /150 gms
- 1 ½ cups banana - Very Ripe/300 gms when mashed
- 2 cups all purpose flour - / Indian maida/ 250 gms
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon powder
- ½ teaspoon ginger powder
- ½ teaspoon cardamom powder
- 2 large eggs
- ¾ cup brown sugar - /150 gms
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup plain yogurt - / curd
- 1 cup cranberries, fresh, frozen or dry - /Halved or sliced/ 100 gms
Instructions
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees F)
- Grease a 9" × 5" loaf pan with butter/ oil/ oil spray and line with parchment paper. Leave two inches of parchment paper jutting out over the two long sides of the pan, as the bread will rise as it bakes. Halve the cranberries or slice them into large chunks.
Browning The Butter
- Heat a small pan and melt the butter over low heat, to keep it from burning. As it melts, the butter will foam and slowly turn colour to a light brown. Keeping stirring as the butter browns. When it is brown all over (about 6- 7 minutes on low flame) remove the butter from the heat and immediately transfer to a small heat proof or stainless steel bowl, so that the browning stops the butter is not overcooked. Set it aside to cool. As it cools, the foam will start to disappear. You will get about½ cup from ¾ cup of butter.
Mixing the Batter
- Peel and mash the bananas so that no lumps remain. You don't need to mash them smooth though, just crush them so that they can be mixed with the other ingredients.
- In a large mixing bowl, sieve together the dry ingredients viz. flour, baking soda, salt and the spices - cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom. Stir with a spatula so they mix well.
- In a smaller/ medium sized bowl, beat the two eggs together. Add brown sugar, whisk it in completely. Add vanilla extract and yogurt, whisk well. Add the mashed bananas and whisk them in. Check that the browned butter has cooled, and then whisk it in.
- Add all the wet ingredients together to the dry ingredients, folding them in gently. Check that all the flour including at the bottom of the bowl is now wet. The dough should not be stirred much or whisked at this stage, just make sure all the ingredients are mixed and there is no dry flour or pockets of flour. Lastly, fold in the cranberries, again not stirring much. Reserve 7-8 cranberry halves to top the bread.
Baking the Cranberry Banana Bread
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan which has been lined with parchment paper. It should fill to about 3/4 of the pan. Drop the reserved cranberry halves along the surface of the batter.
- Place the pan in the heated oven on the middle rack, and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour. Check after 50 minutes to see that the sides are brown and a toothpick/ skewer inserted into the centre of the loaf comes out clean, without batter sticking to it.
- Remove from the cranberry banana bread from the oven. Let it rest in the pan for 15 minutes, and then move it to a wire rack to cool. Slice the bread only after it has cooled completely. I leave it overnight to cool. Store wrapped in foil, in the fridge. Serve warm.
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